And the music plays on

Yes, I admit, I am a Grammy Awards watcher. I don’t know if I will ever get too old to appreciate the gift of music and the poetry of lyrics. Oh, I know, things get a little more histrionic every year, but no matter how wild and crazy and frenzied the world tries to get, the purity of the words and music comes through.

Where else can you go and see Dylan croaking out Maggie’s Farm with one of the best new bands, Mumford and Son. Dylan hasn’t been able to sing for many many years, but he remains an icon. He always takes me back to my college years, when he could sing and he was the poet laureate of our culture. Maggie’s Farm was a mantra of a time no more understood than the lyrics of the song. Yet there remained a poetic truth that no one could question. Tonight’s performance reminded me of my young adult sons. Both of them had a need to see Bob Dylan on their pilgrimage of adolescence. I spent one long evening at the State Fair, and another longer one in the rain at O’Brien Field, to fulfill their dreams. No one could understand a word, but it was worth it to spend those special evenings with my young troubadours, my children becoming men, flexing their creative muscles on the same music that nurtured me. The other side of that equation being Mumford and Son. Both my boys know my taste in music and are my “music mentors”. They help me find the wheat amid the chaff of today’s music. When either of them tell me of a band I will like, I immediately download a sampling. When, in the case of Mumford and Son, both of them tell me of a band that will please me, I am immediately a fan. They have never disappointed me – my sons – not Mumford and Son!

My children know my taste in music runs from opera, classical, showtunes, Christian, country and rock. My daughter know I think Eminem is a great poet who works out his demons through his words. They all know what makes me laugh, what makes me cry. I trust that when the years come when I can no longer make my own requests, due to fading tongue or mind, they will just know and fill my room with music – true songs of the soul – music that pleases God – like Leonard Cohen sings in Hallejlulah of David’s chords pleasing the Lord. When I am journeying toward that great meeting with my God, I trust my children to know just the right playlist.